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Don't think an average striker will end up scoring while we're dominating posession like this. If anyone nicks a goal for Arsenal, I can't see beyond Adebayor. Legitimately as good as Drogba now. Hardly. Aye, this isn't the place, but that's balls, mate. I'm actually dead serious. Somebody want to start a thread?

Don't think an average striker will end up scoring while we're dominating posession like this. If anyone nicks a goal for Arsenal, I can't see beyond Adebayor. Legitimately as good as Drogba now.

this worries me. For a moment there I was thinking "f***, he's gonna bring Henry on now." Not all that worried by Bendtner tbh

Think we're actually playing very well right now. You can tell that most of them are playing their hearts out. I really hope the atmosphere at SJP is cracking today. I'm in lecture so I can't even turn the sound on.

Villa's team is strong, but the squad is weak - far too small. Take out goalkeepers and we've got 17 players in the squad. It woudn't take too many injuries to not be able to name a bench. Good point that, wasn't distinguishing between team and squad. City and Spurs aren't exactly brimming with depth either though, so I figure the rankings would stay the same. Were not brimming with Depth??? Lennon Routledge Malbranque Taarabt Zokora Jenas Huddlestone Tainio Boateng Ghaly and also Bale plays there. Sorry, forgot half those players existed. well.. you've got the numbers, I'll give you that.

It's pretty sad when you think about it. Geremi looks shit, Emre is a good player who was just never suited for English football, Butt is 33 in three weeks, and Smith is a good...striker. Wish we could have just one good midfielder we could be proud of. Maybe Joey Barton will be that. Then again, with our luck, maybe not.

So you're saying that if we offered you Viduka back today you wouldn't take him in a heartbeat? Aliadiere, Tuncay, and Lee Dongook are all in deadly form I hear.

Villa's team is strong, but the squad is weak - far too small. Take out goalkeepers and we've got 17 players in the squad. It woudn't take too many injuries to not be able to name a bench. Good point that, wasn't distinguishing between team and squad. City and Spurs aren't exactly brimming with depth either though, so I figure the rankings would stay the same. We've been very, very lucky with injuries so far this season. Although the facilities at the new training complex (and the training methods) might have some influence on that, there's no getting away that we'd be very stretched very quickly. He says he only wants to buy the players he really wants and is prepared to wait, but it is a dangerous game. We have no right back and only one left back (and Barry is s*** at LB, so not an option) at the club, but we've got about 12,000 centre halves. If Mellberg and Gardener got injured, or Bouma, we'd be f*****. He needs to buy very well in January or it will bite us on the arse. If it's any consolation at all you playing four center-halves in the defense seems to be working better than us actually having fullbacks.

Villa's team is strong, but the squad is weak - far too small. Take out goalkeepers and we've got 17 players in the squad. It woudn't take too many injuries to not be able to name a bench. Good point that, wasn't distinguishing between team and squad. City and Spurs aren't exactly brimming with depth either though, so I figure the rankings would stay the same.

outside of the top 4 I think I'd rank overall squad strength as Portsmouth-Everton-Blackburn-Villa-City-Spurs. I'd like to think we have better players than West Ham at least.

I was too for a moment but now that I think about it... I would too. In fact, I might even have their keeper.

nope. South Korean currently living in the United States. Been to the city a few times, would love an excuse to live there for a year or two.

lads deserve some applause for the preformance. The scoreline doesn't do us justice in any way. Heck, if we keep playing like this we might even be able to turn things around after getting slaughtered midweek by arsenal.

Yeah, i noticed that. Needless to say, Krul has time on his side. It's a shame that Given's been inconsistent fitness-wise, because it'll probably mean that Krul will stay with us for the rest of the season when he comes back. Would be great to see him go out to the Championship. Personally I think that the kind of stuff used to criticize Given (good shot stopper but no command of defense/aerial ability/distributing) is just the universal method people use when they want to find fault in good keepers. Since they're shot stopping is so good, people just assume that their other, less observable abilities must be horrible. Granted, I'm not saying that Given has great distribution or anything, but still, it's something to think about.

1. A Premier League Match 18. An International 30. A Friendly 35. A Penalty Shootout 36. A saved penalty 40. Seen a playoff final 50. Travelled more than 400 miles specifically to watch a game. Not much for me. Can't believe I couldn't find the time to make a WC match in 2002

I'll be at SJP again for this one so I'm sort of excited. The way Sam is playing the team I really don't see us scoring though. which is depressing. Ah well, at least I'll be able to check out that nice Italian place again...

Allardyce 7 - don't know what he's thinking tactically but you can't ignore that his decisiveness has made a lot of badly needed fundamental changes at the club. (Identifying less obvious transfer targets/Reasonable fiscal policy/better fitness regimen.) Granted, some of the changes may be down to Ashley and Mort more than Sam, but I still think his contribution can't be ignored. We could sack Sam Allardyce right now and his reign at Newcastle would still have been a positive one for the club. (Not that we should, of course) Beye 6 - obviously a better player than Carr. Hasn't impressed yet but hasn't made any mistakes either. I think he can only get better as he settles in. Enrique 8 - Solid on the defense, dangerous on the offence. Amazing contriution considering that he's a young player that's still getting used to the Premiership. Has the potential to become absolute quality after about a year I think. Faye 7 - Good and solid. Pretty much what we expected when he bought him. Viduka 6 - Huge impact when he's playing but perma-crocked for about half the season. Again, pretty much what we expected when we bought him. Barton 5 - Hasn't been playing well since coming back from injury. Hope he gets back to the level we all know he can play at. We really shouldn't have to be worrying about having a good attacking midfielder with Joey Barton in the squad. Rozehnal 7 - Has been good and solid throughout. Not sure why he was dropped in the first place. Cacapa 6 - thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, necessarily revising my opinion after Reading and Portsmouth. Seems a solid defender who just has bad days sometimes. Lack of physical presence is somewhat worrying. Smith 6 - more of an Ashley signing than an Allardyce signing perhaps? I'm still not sure what he's supposed to bring to the squad. Obviously dross when played in the midfield or on the wings. Decent backup striker and an improvement over Ameobi I suppose, but we could do better with 6m. Geremi 7 - gets some stick because of his quiet, unselfish style and the fact that he's capatain (what is it with us and hating all of our captains after Shearer) but I think his contribution has been generally positive so far. Would do better than Butt in Butt's position imo. Concur in the opinion that his set plays have been shite.

Getting wierd, disturbing premonitions of Sunderland 1 (Chopra '70) - 0 Newcastle I really hope I've just gone nuts.

So basically teams with better players will be more successful? Shocking. On a more serious note, I honestly can't figure out for the life of me why Sam insists on the switching-up-the-wingers thing. Does that make any tactical sense at all?

Completely unrelated to your point, but I've always found it fascinating how Americans tend to pay so much attention to statistics in their sports, while the British couldn't give a toss about stats. Was watching an MLS game once and was flabbergasted by the amount of statistics that was being discussed.. Shots on goals per game, GK save % etc... It was just a completely different way of looking at the game. I wonder where that difference comes from.

Do you think Newcastle's current squad is capable of matching or surpassing them? Or will extensive investment be needed in January? Who, City? I think we could. I don't see us being particularly inferior to them anywhere on the pitch except for attacking midfielders (Elano and Petrov have both been stunningly good buys.) and they would kill to have any one of our best three strikers. Defensively we should be about equal when both teams have good days. ...Not that I wouldn't welcome some extensive investment come January.

You know, if Ashley is actually seriously considering replacing Sam, I hope he's at least being discreet about it. Not so long ago we were laughing at Spurs for tapping up Juande Ramos... If results keep going south we could very soon be in the same situation.

regardless of how good his link up play might be, you just can't play with a striker who can't score.

Well, that was kind of what we were expecting before the season even started, no? true, but they all seem to be really starting to hit their straps, whereas Newcastle are...... Portsmouth, Everton, and Blackburn all had squads leaps and bounds beyond ours last season. I think we're catching up pretty decently. As for City, they've had a lot of luck both on the transfer market and on the pitch. I don't really think they play better football than we do.

Well, that was kind of what we were expecting before the season even started, no?